Why NetBeans

NetBeans is a powerful IDE for Java that is also easy for beginners to learn - an important consideration for students. As of July 2014, the IGB team is using Apache Maven to build IGB. NetBeans has good support for maven, which is another reason we are using it.

In addition, IGB contains user interface components that were created using the NetBeans GUI builder. If you want to modify those components, you'll need to use NetBeans.

Open IGB Project

In this example, the top level directory of a cloned fork of the IGB project is selected.

Your projects tab should now contain a project called IGB Project:

Compile the project

IGB uses Apache maven for compilation. Note that first time you compile IGB, maven will download external libraries IGB needs from our maven repository located at http://eos.transvar.org/nexus/. Maven will store these files in your local maven repository, typically the directory ".m2" in your home directory.

Note that this means you must be connected to the internet to compile IGB for the first time.

To compile IGB:

Right-click IGB project in the Projects tab

Select Clean and Build

If the project builds (compiles) successfully, you should see something like the following in the output tab:

Run IGB

After the project compiles, open and run the main module project to run IGB in Netbeans.

To open the IGB main module:

In the Projects tab, select IGB Project > Modules > main

Right-click main

Select Open Project

A new project named "main" will appear in the same level as the IGB Project under the Projects tab:

To run IGB, run the main project. To run main, you can

Select Run > Project (main) in the NetBeans application menu (only active if "main" is selected in the Projects tab)